1. a centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability Andy Powell a.powell@ukoln.ac.uk UKOLN, University of Bath COLIS Meeting, London February 2003

2. 2 IMS DRI Specifications IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability define protocols for interoperability between systems machine2machine (i.e. how software components talk to each other over the network) how data (and metadata) is transferred (note that other IMS specs tend to focus on data formats rather than data transfer)

3. 3 IMS DRI service components IMS DRI splits services into three broad classes… access services (resource utilizers) –services with which the end-user interacts –LMS/VLE, portal, … provision services (repositories) –services that make content available intermediaries (brokers, aggregators) –services that sit between the other two note that IMS uses Learning Management System (LMS) rather than VLE (and I think we should too!)

4. 4 IMS DRI repositories splits repositories into two broad classes… learning object repositories (LOR) –e.g. JORUM+ –resources described using IMS metadata –resources packages using IMS CP information repositories –library OPACs, museum databases, image archives, RDN subject gateways, … –resources typically described using non- IMS metadata (DC, MARC, …)

5. 5 Summary… interoperability between VLE and repositories –repositories of information objects –learning object repositories (LOR) –metadata only and metadata and full- content repositories integration of VLE with backend LOR seamless access to information resources from within VLE

6. 6 IMS DRI on paper three-part specification (version 1.0)… IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability - Core Functions Information Model IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability - Core Functions XML Binding IMS Digital Repositories Interoperability - Core Functions Best Practice Guide http://www.imsproject.org/

7. IMS Digital Repositories Repositories Resource Utilizers Directories Vocabulary Competency Metadata Repositories OrganizationsTraders Access Management MANAGE RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS CONTROL ACCESS AUTHENTICATE AUTHORISE AUDIT Procurement NEGOTIATE TRADE MAKE PAYMENT SEARCH Learner CreatorInfoseeker Assets Metadata DISCOVER REQUEST USE Presentation Mediation Provision People Agent RESOLVE Registries STORE EXPOSEMANAGESTOREEXPOSEMANAGE DELIVER (Query, Browse, Follow Path) ACCESS GATHER PUBLISH MANAGE ALERT EXPOSE

8. 8 End-user functionality end-user is learner, creator, info seeker or agent users need to –discover, –access –and use resources discover achieved by –query (initiating a search) across one or more repositories –browse across one or more repositories –follow path (e.g. via Learning Design spec)

9. 9 System functionality access services need to support –search, gather, alert (for discover) –request (for access) –publish (for use) provision services need to support –expose (for discover) –deliver (for access) –store (for use) –manage

10. 10 Search/Expose 2 protocols supported… –XQuery over SOAP (for learning object repositories) –Z39.50 (for information repositories) both return IMS metadata records IMS Z39.50 profile under development –set of search attributes based on IMS metadata –IMS metadata record syntax (XML)

11. 11 Gather/Expose OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) supports regular gathering of some or all metadata records from a repository carries simple DC records (mandated by OAI) and IMS metadata –or any metadata format encoded in XML/XML Schema need to agree details for how to carry IMS records in OAI-PMH

12. 12 Alert/Expose no recommendations currently considering use of RSS… –Rich Site Summary –RDF Site Summary …but concerns about conflicts between versions 0.9, 1.0 and 2.0

13. 13 Request/Deliver HTTP (and FTP) use of DOIs and PURLs for persistent naming use of OpenURLs to resolve to appropriate copy of information (bibliographic) resources

14. 14 Publish/Store FTP to upload IMS content packages to Learning Object Repositories

15. 15 Why is IMS DRI important? VLE (in some shape or form) likely to become one of key presentation services in institutional context IMS DRI specs fill space between information providers and VLEs information providers need to think about exposing stuff in the context of e- learning systems VLE-vendors relatively mainstream pushes digital library technologies to new and wider audience

16. JISC Information Env. Broker/Aggregator Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Service Registry Resolver Instn Profile Shared services Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer 16

17. 17 JISC IE tech summary discover, access, use content providers, brokers/aggregators, presentation services (portals) searching, harvesting, alerting Z39.50 (Bath Profile), OAI, RSS are key discovery technologies... –… and by implication, XML and simple/unqualified Dublin Core recognition that SOAP will become more important (e.g. SRW) access to resources via OpenURL and resolvers where appropriate

18. 18 IMS DRI vs. JISC IE IMS DRI XQuery/SOAP Z39.50 (IMS) OAI-PMH OpenURL IMS metadata DOI/PURL FTP (publishing) UDDI? JISC IE (SRW/SOAP) Z39.50 (Bath Profile) OAI-PMH RSS OpenURL simple DC UDDI? UKCMF

19. 19 Questions…

20. a centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk